


A Message to Your Soul

by orphan_account



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, MFMM Year of Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 21:01:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13198488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Phryne Fisher doesn't believe in soulmates. A bartender in Mykonos thinks she's wrong. A very late breaking entry for the January "soul mates" trope challenge. (Thank you amnesty month. Now I've collected the whole set ;-) ).





	A Message to Your Soul

**December, 1926**

“It makes me sad to see a beautiful woman alone on a night such as this.” The bartender plucked a bottle of champagne from the ice bucket and refilled Phryne’s glass. 

“It’s no less sad to be the woman in question,” she replied quickly, hoisting her glass in salute. 

The night was clear and balmy. The beachfront bar, attached to one of the finest tourist hotels in Mykonos, wide open to calm breezes of the Aegean Sea. A sky full of stars shimmered beautifully, as did the woman herself, decked out in a sleek black gown with crystalline beads that reflected the candlelight. 

The bartender was flirting, of course, but as he was old enough to be Phryne’s grandfather she decided that he posed no real risk to her present state of cozy melancholy. 

“What man was fool enough to leave you alone tonight?” he asked. “No, don’t answer,” he continued. “I don’t want to know. If I see him later, I’d have to spit in his drink.” At the last, he contorted his lips into an exaggerated pucker, then burst the air back out — pfffttt — in mock demonstration of his loyalty. 

Phryne smiled, warmed by the man’s efforts to cheer her. She motioned for him to move closer. The old man leaned over the bar, close enough for Phryne to whisper into his left ear, “Don’t go to that much trouble, Xenos,” she purred. “He wasn’t that good.” 

Xenos laughed heartily, then refilled her glass once again. Eyes twinkling, he took and exaggerated look around the empty room, then stole a swig from the champagne bottle — the last dregs — before turning it upside down in the silver ice bucket. “Next, we go to the good stuff, yes?” 

“Yes,” she repeated. “It’s my birthday, after all. Bring out the good stuff. Put it on my tab.” 

As Xenos busied himself with the preparations, Phryne strolled away from the bar counter, pausing at an arched doorway overlooking the dark below. 

“Perhaps it is all for the best,” Xenos continued, joining her with a fresh glass of bubbly. “This man, to leave you alone on your birthday, he could not have been the right one for you, yes? Could not have been a soulmate.” 

“A soulmate,” she repeated, an edge of incredulity in her tone. “I’m sorry. I can’t agree to such a romantic notion.” 

Xenos was crestfallen. 

“I’ve seen a great deal,” she continued. “War. Great sadness.” 

“But you are so young,” he began. 

She cut him off, ever so gently. “I believe in joy. I believe in friendship. I relish fantastic sex. Occasionally, if the moonlight is particularly fine, I believe I might someday find the great love of my life. But a soulmate? No. I can’t believe the events of our lives are predetermined in that way, good or bad.” 

Xenos felt something in her expression, an alchemy of love and light behind her eyes that had somehow transformed her experience of great pain, whatever it may have been, into something altogether different. “You are a beautiful soul,” he said simply, and relished the smile she returned. 

A trail of white stone steps led from the archway towards the sea. Phryne grabbed the champagne bottle, took a few steps down the path, then swept the long black skirt of the gown underneath her and took a seat on a broad stone landing. 

“Will you allow me a story?” Xenos asked, sitting next to her on the landing. “As a birthday gift. You don’t have to believe in soulmates, but for me, the idea brings peace, yes? A sign of God, perhaps. Or one of the gods. We are still Greek, after all.” He chuckled softly, and looked further out to sea. 

“I’d enjoy a story,” Phryne answered. “Thank you.” 

“When I was a young man,” he continued, “a Gypsy woman came to our village every summer. A true Gypsy, from Romania,” he enthused. “The people of my village lined up at her tent for hours at a time. She promised to reveal to each of them something about their true soulmate — a phrase, or maybe a mark upon the skin, or a unique feature — something for the young and hopeful, or the old and lonely.” 

“Did you visit her?” Phryne asked, truly curious as she attempted to picture the scene through his eyes. 

“I did,” he answered. “I saved all season, holding on to coins I earned from British tourists until I had enough for her fee on the very last day of summer.” 

“And what did she tell you?” 

“What she told me made me very angry,” he stated. “Furiously angry.” There was a fire in his reminiscence that made Phryne feel as if the past and present were very closely bound at that moment. “She took my hand in hers, held my palm to the light of her special candle, but told me that she could see nothing! Nothing at all of my future happiness.” 

“I’m very sorry Xenos,” Phryne said quietly. 

“I felt no sorrow,” he continued. “I pulled my hand from hers with great force. I grabbed her candle and held it to the hem of her lace tablecloth. ‘Tell me my future,’ I demanded. ‘Or I will burn down your tent and all of your possessions!’" 

Phryne recoiled, taken aback by the intensity of his recollection. 

Xenos noticed, then laughed to put her at ease. 

“I was a foolish young man, but I did nothing to harm her. I didn’t have time!” He laughed heartily again. “The Gypsy knocked the candle from my hand with the heel of her boot and snuffed the flame in the same motion. Look! I still have a heel mark near my knuckle.” 

“Impressive woman,” Phryne marveled. 

“Very much so,” Xenos replied. “Do you have any idea what she told me next?” 

“Do tell.” 

“She said I had the power to divine soulmates in others. _Me_. Xenos. I couldn’t believe it.” 

“And did you?” Phryne asked, her natural curiosity driving a desire to see this odd story through the end. 

“I tried it only once,” he replied, eyes sparkling with a mischievous joy. “With the young lady in my village that I very much hoped might become Mrs. Xenos.” 

Phryne smiled widely, guessing the next answer before she had proffered the question. 

“Yes, Miss Fisher, you are correct,” he exclaimed. “She was my wife for thirty years, and now, still, my soul’s only partner.” 

“That’s lovely, Xenos,” Phryne responded. She was pleased that the notion made him happy. 

“But you still do not believe?” he asked. 

“No,” she answered simply. Standing slowly, a bit stiff from the hard stone seat, Phryne stretched, then gathered her wrap closely about her shoulders. The crystal beads of her gown still glimmered in the soft moonlight. “Good night, Xenos,” she said, leaning to kiss him lightly on the cheek. “Thank you for the company.” 

“Would you like me to try, Miss Fisher?” Xenos asked, taking her hand lightly in his own. “It is my gift of sight, after all. It only matters that I believe, not that you believe. Yes?” 

Phryne shrugged, realizing that the evening’s conversation was headed to this inevitable conclusion all along. “What the hell,” she laughed heartily, then turned her hand over in his so that the palm lay skyward, bathed in the Aegean moonlight. “Tell me what you see, Xenos.” 

Xenos studied the lines of her delicate hand, tracing the palm left to right with a stubby rough finger. He closed his eyes — perhaps for dramatic effect, Phryne thought — and let her hand fall to her side. After a long moment — too long for Phryne’s liking — Xenos opened his eyes and spoke. 

“Your soulmate is far away,” he began. “You haven’t met him yet, and he doesn’t know you, but he is waiting all the same.” 

_So far so good_ , Phryne thought, _an answer vague enough to satisfy any romantic fool_. “Is that all?” she asked sweetly, eager to get on with it. 

“I cannot tell you the first words he will say to you, or whether he has some sort of identifying mark. But he will say certain words to you, at a time of great need. Words that will let you know that he is the one.” 

With that, Phryne turned away, taking two steps forward towards the hotel. “Thank you, Xenos, I really must be going now.” 

“But Miss Fisher, don’t you wish to know the words?” 

“You have the words, Xenos? From your vision. Specific words?” 

“Yes,” he replied. “Although they make little sense to me. ‘You know what to do.’” 

“I know what to do?” she repeated, querulously. 

“No,” he answered. “Those are the words of your soulmate at the time of your great need. You will ask for his help and he will say to you, ‘You know what to do.’” 

Phryne smiled. That was a _most_ satisfying answer. Her soulmate, if indeed there was such a thing, would certainly have to be that rare species of man who would support her in the knowledge of her own mind. 

“You know what to do,” she repeated, a full smile spreading once again across her beautiful features. 

“Thank you again, Xenos,” she said, then strode up the stairs into the night. 

“Happy Birthday,” he called after her, and for just a moment, the stars shone a little brighter over the dark sea. 

* * *

**December, 1929**

“Happy Birthday, Phryne,” Jack whispered, wrapping his arms around her as he pulled her closer. The moonlight shone through the window of their London hotel room. The clear winter sky was full of stars. Phryne turned in Jack's arms, kissed him good morning, and settled in to his warm embrace.


End file.
